A climate change conversion

We cannot tackle global warming by technology alone: we will need ethics, as individuals and as a society

Mark Vernon
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 11 2008 09.30 GMT

Can the climate change crisis be answered purely by science and technology, or does it need to be understood as a moral and spiritual issue too? In a lecture for the Christian climate change agency, Operation Noah today, Christopher Jamison, the Abbot of Worth Abbey that featured on the TV series The Monastery, will make a compelling case that it is very much the latter.
An abbot would say that, wouldn't he. But read on. At root, Jamison is calling for a more serious engagement with ethics in public life. This means not just overcoming the fear of appearing to be merely moralizing. And not just learning to see ethics as more than a series of issues – as if it were mostly a matter of deciding whether you are for or against abortion, assisted dying, gay marriage, and so on. His agenda demands even more than equating ethics with human rights, for all that human rights can achieve. Rather, ethics is about the shape of life taken as a whole, and the direction in which a society is headed; it is about your vision of the good life, as the ancient Greek philosophers used to put it.
More particularly, when it comes to climate change, the argument is that rules and laws will not be enough, any more than they were enough to curtail the worst excesses of the City. (Incidentally, Jamison has been an advisor to the FSA, so he knows what he is talking about.) This is because climate change is not just about human behaviour, but human desire. It is our desire for freedom, for novelty, for comfort that lies at the heart of the crisis. Our piecemeal behaviours, such as hopping on cheap flights or leaving the heating on, are products of that desire.
Tackling climate change is, therefore, a matter of finding a new moral framework from within which to envisage life. Jamison believes that the Benedictine way of life, which he and his brethren follow, has some resources for doing that. He also believes they are accessible to all, regardless of vocation or faith.
Benedict thought the good life is about the cultivation of virtues. In this, he was following the ancient Greeks. Jamison highlights four virtues that might be particularly valuable today: fortitude (or courage), justice, temperance (or moderation) and prudence (or care). These four need to become part of the public discussion. Justice often is already, but alone it is not enough.
This is a big ask, though climate change is a big problem. The Pope recently spoke of the need for nothing less than an "ecological conversion", something that will take time to stimulate and sustain. There is an important link to the question of happiness here too: if a desirable life is at least in part a happy life then what do we take happiness to be? Again, along with the Greeks, Jamison is quite clear that we have got our answer to that question wrong. Happiness is not about feeling good; the hedonistic assumption is part of the problem. Rather, it is about pursuing the good, knowing the good and doing good. He believes that religious faith is a particular good way of nourishing such a vision of happiness, though he is quite prepared to admit that a faith is not necessary to it.
Now, it would be easy to respond by casting stones. For one thing, the church is a late convert to climate change. The head of Operation Noah is Mark Dowd. He makes films for TV and only a couple of years ago interviewed the Vatican's spokesman on climate change for his film "God is Green": it was quite clear then that the Vatican had barely any idea about climate change. However, when it comes to a subject like this, no-one is without sin.
So perhaps a more constructive way forward is to ask about the challenges the abbot's comments represent. For if you buy the argument that there is a need for more than science and technology to respond to climate change, then they are profound challenges indeed. (That some don't buy the argument is partly because they believe the moral ask is too much.) The challenge includes developing a different idea about happiness, which is to say an idea of the good life that is knowing and doing good rather than merely feeling good. The very notion of the good life raises a related issue, namely a sense of and commitment to community: community is difficult in a pluralistic society, where the nature of the good life is not agreed and people live fragmented lives.
There are other issues to confront, such as what we think about freedom. In the Benedictine way of life, freedom is seen primarily as an interior condition rather than a freedom to act in the world; it is about freedom of spirit rather than freedom of choice. Moreover, the Rule insists that it is necessary to give up on choice in order to find that inner freedom: another major challenge to most of Western living.
Jamison explores these issues at greater length in his bestselling books, that latest being Finding Happiness. No small part of his appeal is that he is actually living the life he commends, which is why he is an attractive figure, not a moralizing one. His points are well made, but if responding to climate change needs more than science it also needs more than argument. For if Jamison is right, then climate change demands nothing less than what religious people call a conversion, a fundamental reorientation of your way of life.